Savoring life. Writing on experiences. Moments and milestones in equal measure.

Monday, October 31, 2016

Kunta Kinte

Roots History

So how do you know
just how vulnerable you are? Like to pain and its brothers? Mi I have a rough idea about my pain
tolerance abilities. On the lower end there is zero pain – this is my zone
mostly because I know hitting a toe against the table will ache even to the
deep of your soul – then on the higher end the limit is at a thuraku biting on my man parts.

So, yea,
that’s my range sort of.

I know the later
seems ridiculous but ants will make the bravest of warriors wriggle in pain
just because they know where to bite. You’d be walking down a street with your
boys beating your chest about sijui
how last December you killed a nyoka
back in ushago or how like my blogger
friend Siloma you got stuck in the middle of nowhere when your car refused to
perform its car duties like all good cars do and how you fixed it all by yourself
although we know the mechanic was on loud speaker all the time and then as you
keep beating your chest an ant along the street gutters will just decide you’re
bragging about your heroism too much. It will get agitated. It will want to
bite you.

And because that ant will be a thuraku
ninja warrior it will not bite sijui
your zgwembe, nah that is the work of
regular thuraku, instead, it will
climb up your shoe and up your trouser and it will go on and bite one of your
balls. And it will bite like it means it because the thuraku has been to the Thuraku
defence forces training camp and you know it had its thuraku teeth checked during recruitment. It will probably be a
high ranking operative in the thuraku
ninja warrior army.

The thuraku will haven proven to you that
you and your tiny chest can go down as easily as drunk Nairobi drivers at an
NTSA stop. With the thuraku biting
your powerhouse you will squirm and your friends will laugh and you will
rummage through your pants trying to rescue yourself from the kaninja warrior of thuraku army and it will be an awful experience because pain and
embarrassment will befriend you in that moment.

Now you see how
high my pain tolerance is?

reference.com

So what does pain
do to you? Besides having you writhe around? Well, again, mi I (forgive my murder of English in this phrase) know what it
does; it makes me defensive. I will walk a wire just not to feel the pain I
have felt before. Like I will refuse to be friendly to any thuraku at all. Even the regular thuraku. (If you haven’t caught up already just know thuraku is Kuyu for ant). And because
pain can make a good person who goes to church and prays and even doesn’t say
fuck to other people when they walk slowly on the street (I get street – road -
rage very easily) become a monster, I will kill thurakus whenever I see them. I will pledge my lifetime to making
their lives miserable.

I know you’re
probably wondering where we are going with the thuraku thing. Right? Okay, so last week I killed many thurakus that were on a road trip (I
think; they were carrying bread and stuff) and happened to pass near my window.
Later I thought about it and felt a little bad. Why? Mostly because there are thurakus that I know live somewhere in
our rooftop and I believe they have seen me as a good neighbour all along and
because we have all minded our businesses for long since without much fuss. Now
I can feel that they think I betrayed them and that is alright but again I
think they are planning something big in retaliation. Like a biting ceremony at
night where they will attack from all sides.

(Okay I have to
confess I was going to write about kunta kinte but the thuraku story kind became fun).

Kunta kinte is a guy I was in a movie
series a couple of months ago. I am not sure how real the story was but he was kinda legendary in the era of slavery
and Negro manenos. Kunta was that one
renegade guy that does not flow with the current. The guy that would rather
have no toes that stay and milk white people cows at the farm – they cut off
his toes for running away. He also refused to take a name that was not his.
There is this white boss that lashed him for kedo forty minutes until he accepted a name that the guy’s wife
thought was appropriate. They wanted him to be called Kinuthia but he refused and insisted he was Kunte.

So how does Kinta Kunte and the thuraku escapade relate? It is simple. I thought Kunte is the only guy that would not
squirm if that thuraku I told you
about bit his ninii. Well, him and
this guy called Okiya Omtatah. And maybe Boniface Mwangi. Although I think
Boniface might hold protests against the thurakus.

PS. Boniface
Mwangi for president right?

Why do I think Kunta Kinte wouldn’t feel the pain?

I think of pain
like a river of sorts. It will cut even the toughest of rocks. But in time, the
rocks at the bedside figure out a way to derive serenity in the force of the
water. The same force that eats into them. In time, Kunte figured out how to get above the white man’s pain. And –
spoilers – he conquered slavery and lives on as a legend that is the whole
point of the TV series.

So how does that
make me feel? – the Kunta Kinte thing.

Good you asked. It
makes me feel invincible. That next time a thuraku
bites me I will not flinch even alilo.
I will stand and think beyond the pain for as long as I can then crush the thuraku eventually. Showing it that I
have outgrown its bites.

Feeling motivate
yet? No? Well, the next time you face pain intense enough that standing still
becomes impossible just know that in time you become refined. Hard. Like a
rock. The same pain will not sink you again if you sail through it now.

1 comment:

Useless kabisa. Were you the mechanic? Do you know it costs your year's wages to call from Oloitokitok? Haha. I bet you cannot stand Oloitokitok's thurakus esp the red ones will freak the hell off the Kunta Kinte in you. Now I feel like the Wesh of Bikozulu comments. Keep writing. I will be landing here every Monday evening. We as fans we need a schedule.